


don't step on his gown (he'll make you regret it)

by cpt_winniethepooh



Series: when i look at him [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Assumptions, Avengers Family, Bucky has a cat, Coming Out, Embedded Images, Gratuitous Taylor Swift references, Instagram, M/M, Misconceptions, Mixed Media, Past Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers, Pepper Potts Is a Good Bro, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Pride Parades, Protective Steve Rogers, Social Justice Warrior Steve Rogers, Social Media, Steve Rogers is a little shit, The Avengers Are Good Bros, Tumblr, Twitter, agressively progressive steve rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-18
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-09-05 23:21:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20281543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cpt_winniethepooh/pseuds/cpt_winniethepooh
Summary: Steve later (much, much later) tells Bucky what Erskine told him, that the serum enhances whatever's already inside. And a huge part of Steve, besides the caring and determination and a good heart, is an overdramatic body. And the serum makes the overdramatism bigger too.Therefore Bucky isn't surprised that when some of his pictures are leaked and everybody is speculating who's Cap's new girlfriend, Steve suggests pranking the world. How long would it take them to realize the "girlfriend" is actually ex-brainwashed assassin and childhood best friend Bucky Barnes?A coming out story with lots of meta, mixed media, trolling, and Taylor Swift references.





	don't step on his gown (he'll make you regret it)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Nothing's As Sweet As Super Soldiers In Love](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3618150) by [heartsdesire456](https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartsdesire456/pseuds/heartsdesire456). 
  * Inspired by [Steve Rogers and the minefields of social media](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16791373) by [cpt_winniethepooh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cpt_winniethepooh/pseuds/cpt_winniethepooh). 

> HUGE thanks to [Menatiera ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/menatiera)for the cheerleading and betaing! <3 You are the best, darling! 
> 
> Title is, of course, based on _You Need To Calm Down _by Taylor Swift. 
> 
> [The images sometimes don't load properly; if you want the full fic with all the embedded images, you can download the PDF here!](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1H7eSnRXvQ_s_ZsBgPXDAOGPiitEGQvd7/view)

People calling Steve overdramatic are not wrong, per se, but they are also forgetting some - in Bucky's opinion - crucial things. 

Because Steve _ does _things people call overdramatic all the time. Has been, since Bucky's known him. Always smaller than the rest of the boys, fragile-looking, frail, and picking up on bullies twice his size and age with nothing but a loud shout and futilely raised fists - what's that if not dramatic? Stupid, certainly, but the two are not mutually exclusive. 

Steve's motivation on any given subject stems simultaneously from two things: his desire to prove wrong the world's conceptions about him, and his own golden heart, the biggest and brightest Bucky could ever wish to follow. So sure Steve ends up being beaten within an inch of his life at dark alleys, just to frown at the blood on his knuckles and his only shirt without a hole in it, and just to be able to say, “He won't be showing up at Rita O'Riley's uninvited anymore.” (No, he won't, because Bucky, who isn’t a welterweight boxing champion for nothing, has a subtle talk with the idiot too and ends up changing his mind not only about harassing girls but also about beating up smaller guys with health problems.)

Steve ends up giving the last of his weekly rations to a too skinny stray dog on a Friday, while his bones rattle in the too big clothes, but he smiles at Bucky and proclaims the dog needed it more. (Bucky, of course, invites him with Sarah to his own family for lunch.) 

Steve ends up joining the army and walking around on the front with a target painted onto his chest in the brightest colors available, and says, “Every man has to do his part, I'm just doing whatever I can, Buck.” (Bucky is too busy trying to snipe down every Nazi in a mile radius to pull his own hair out by the strands, which is the only upside to this newest overdramatic heroism-filled _ nightmare _ Steve has managed to get them both into.) 

So yes, it _ may _ seem overdramatic. Probably is; a small, angry, fragile looking guy trying to do things with the flair of bigger, better, stronger guys. 

The other side of the coin is that Steve's... overdramatism is nothing compared to his _ body's _ overdramatism. Because when Steve tries to breathe - nothing special, just a simple, basic thing to do to stay alive - his body tries to kill him by refusing the air. When he tries to paint the not-so-wonderful world around him, because he can sketch like nobody else on their street and an artist would've been the perfect job for Steve to have, his eyes can’t tell the green of the leaves from the red of the rose petals apart. When he tries to walk, he has to endure the pain because of his flat feet and oversized shoes. When being an artist can’t pay the bills and he tries to do the heavy lifting to make ends meet, his bad spine wouldn't let him get up for two weeks straight. 

Steve later (much, much later) tells Bucky what Erskine told him, that the serum enhances whatever's already inside. And a huge part of Steve, besides the caring and determination and a good heart, is an overdramatic body. And the serum makes that bigger too. 

And so now when Steve tries to jump, his body shoots him towards the sky. When he tries to go for a morning run, he ends up overlapping half the state. When he tries to open a door, he ends up with a hole in the wall and the wrangled remains of the knob in his hand. When he wants to go for a friendly pat some other fella ends up with broken bones. 

At least the breathing's fine now.

But then, of course, the idiot decided to up everything and broke direct orders, fuck court martial, then assembled a team of ragtag similar-minded idiots and started the aforementioned waltz around with a target on his back. 

By this point Bucky was too fucking done with everything to muster up the energy to be surprised. 

Fast forward seventy-some years, sidestep decades of torture and hell, then some years of recovery and reintegration - if not to society, then at least to the Avengers - and Bucky is happy to note that even if much has changed, Steve's certain flair for… _ style_, say, remained the same. Even in a Tower stocked full of philanthropist billionaires, scientists that turn green if looked at wrong, actual Norse Gods, ex-assassins who live for the thrill a knowing smile can bring, and, well, Clint Bartons... in that very Tower Steve still gives the rest a run for their money when it comes to the inability to do anything by halves. 

It starts with some servers being hacked. 

Well, okay - maybe it started a little while back, when Bucky was dreading not being able to remember again, so he made photos of _ everything _ around him: the team, passages of the books he was reading, Steve, his dinner, Steve, his cat, even himself - though most was, unsurprisingly, Steve. It calmed him when he woke up in the middle of the night and JARVIS projected a slideshow of his images onto the ceiling. It was also reassuring to know that if he lost his mind again, all he'd need to do was to look at the phone (assuming he would still have it) and he'd know what was real and what wasn't. 

But then the cloud thing that stores his pictures gets broken into. There's not a whole lot on it, mostly he uses the Stark systems that won't fall until the world itself collapses. But before he gained enough of Tony's approval to be graciously handed a phone he had one of these cheap ones - still good enough to function, modern enough with internet and a camera, but of course a fossil brick compared to Tony's. And when he mislaid or broke one of the newer ones, he temporarily picked the old back up again. Took some nice pictures: a sunset above Brooklyn, some birds in the park, his cat, Steve sleeping next to him on wrinkled sheets, a couple of muffins from a new recipe he's tried. 

And then his cloud gets hacked. 

Nobody knows it's his, at least. Not yet. But the major news channels, the daily ragtags and the Internet as a whole has nothing else to talk about for days than how Captain America has a girlfriend. 

“Why do they think it's a girlfriend, just from these pics?” is the first thing Bucky asks when the story hits the headlines. Because the fact that people think only someone like a partner would take that sleepy image of Steve, that Bucky gets. But the gender...?

“Everything's heterosexual unless proved otherwise,” Tony says.

“Especially with Captain America, the embodiment of white American masculinity,” Sam adds apologetically. “To those who don't know him, obviously.”

“'The pictures don't help either,” Pepper says as she browses through them. “These are viewed as traditionally feminine: the romantic sunset, the cute animals, the food you've cooked.”

Steve and Bucky share a meaningful look. “This is so much bullshit,” Bucky says. 

“Yes,”' Pepper agrees. “The question is, how do you want to deal with it?”

Uncharacteristically, Steve's first reaction isn't to jump - to either conclusions or out of a fast-going vehicle - but to consider. “What are our options?”

“Well, you can ignore it. If no other leaks happen and you don't admit anything, the story will get old eventually - you'll have to just wait it out. We can even issue a statement about private life and respect, and coming from Cap it might do wonders. You can say,” Pepper looks at Steve, “that you have someone but ask everybody to let you have your private life as it is: privately.”

“You think that'd stop the paparazzi?”

“Maybe. You have that kind of effect of people,” she smiles. “You can also come forward and tell the truth.”

Suddenly Bucky is not so eager to meet Steve's eyes. Pepper notices, of course, and goes on to say, “You don't have to decide now. Take your time, talk it through.” She even motions to Tony to keep quiet, and for once in his life, he does. 

Bucky'd love to keep beating around the bush for as long as possible, but Steve Rogers's fame was never based on patience. 

“Do you want to come out?” he asks Bucky head on. 

“I don't know.”

“That's a no, then,” Steve says. 

“Hey, I didn't-”

“Look, it's a huge thing. We're both famous, there's a lot- we shouldn’t come out until we feel the time is right.”

That sounds fair. “What if we never feel ready?”

Steve purses his lips into a thin line. “We will.”

“You sound convinced.” 

Bucky knows that Steve wouldn't be able to keep quiet and take this secret into the grave, he'd feel too obliged to be _ honest _ and lead by example and all that noble bullshit, even if it costs him his life.

“I know you,” Steve says simply, and that settles it: they're waiting only for Bucky's okay. But hey, no pressure. 

Steve does a press release with only a couple of trusted reporters, and asks everybody to please allow him some space and stop invading his privacy. It’s so nice and so convincing that even the people whose job it is to reveal secrets nod along in agreement. Bucky's not there personally, though his glaring would probably be just as effective as Steve's words, if no less revealing. 

Most of the speculation is about Natasha, of course, as the only female Avenger and one that is on openly good terms with Cap. There's some rumours about Darcy, of all people, and whoever female happened to be in smiling radius lately: a cute barista at a café, a runner who exchanged some pleasantries with him, and so on ad nauseum. But for the most part, people do leave Steve alone about his love life afterwards, which is nice. And somewhat surprising, even if Bucky has first-hand experience with how persuasive Cap can be. 

“It's only sensational because your last relationship was in the last century,” Tony supplies not-so-helpfully. “It's all about reputation. They couldn't care less if _ I _ got a new girlfriend - not that I'd ever want to.”

“Yeah, in your case it's stable monogamy that is actually news,” Pepper says drily. 

“And the dating used to be a really good cover,” Tony adds, somewhat regretfully. “I could go wherever with whoever I wanted, and people only assumed a date and not a serious business meeting. Came in handy from time to time.” 

“Well, I can't do that, can I,” Steve remarks, matching Pepper in Sahara conditions.

“No. With you a girlfriend by itself is shocking, let alone a boyfriend,” he says, but it seems the conversation plants seeds in both Bucky’s and Steve's minds. 

Steve is on his phone a lot lately. Turns out he likes covert blogging, where he secretly stalks people that stalk him on places like Twitter and Instagram. Sam warned him against it, then just shrugged - apparently a Steve in a relationship with Bucky is deemed mentally stable enough for such things, a prospect that Bucky seriously doubts but he isn't the one with a license to advise troubled vets about solving their problems. And there are quite a lot of people out there who care a great deal about Cap's love life, which still freaks Bucky out a bit because don't those people have lives of their own? Then he realizes he spends his own time searching for cat-friendly treat recipes for Shubbles who doesn’t even appreciate them properly, and so Bucky really shouldn't be the one to judge. And a lot of fans are supportive and hope that whoever Cap's with makes him happy. Some even go as far as to credit Bucky in the process; the history books are full of how he always tried to set him up with a date, after all. 

“That's sweet,” Bucky says cautiously. And certainly better than when people are calling for his dishonorable discharge from the Avengers, he doesn’t say.

“Yeah,” Steve agrees. 

“Wonder how much that'll change when they find out it's me,” Bucky can't help but add. 

“It's gonna be a surprise either way,” Steve shrugs, then something dangerous flashes in his eyes. “How long do you think it'd take for them to realize you're not a woman?”

“With or without underwear?” Bucky asks, then dodges Steve's arm and ignores his remark about being an asshole. “I know, I know, that doesn't matter too much nowadays.”

He likes that it doesn’t matter, even if he only understands half of the issues around gender and sexuality. But he wholeheartedly supports being able to be who you really are, no questions asked.

“I meant,” Steve stresses, “that maybe they should be cautioned against making assumptions.”

Oh God, what fresh hell. “Steve- antagonizing the public isn't really the _ best _way to announce my good influence on you.”

“I don't mean antagonizing the public- okay, maybe I mean that a little bit. But imagine - you could make an account or blog about our relationship, some of our nice dinners and watching movies and mundane stuff, but without revealing who you are. It could be great for your image! When we come out eventually we'll have months worth of proof that we’re just like them, ‘normal’. And also great together!”

It doesn't help that Bucky knows Steve is just trying to get his support for his latest crusade. That he knows it'll end spectacularly badly, the exact opposite of how Steve planned - because it is like old times, it is Steve being overdramatic and Bucky willing to follow him to whatever stupid idiocity he'll inevitably get himself into.

It is realistically the worst idea Bucky's heard of in a long while, and yet he is on board even before Steve's asked the question. 

He grins. 

He creates an Instagram account - that seems safest - under the name **@onyourright**. Easy way to post pictures, no long text required, and he likes the look of the dashboard too. It takes a couple of days for him to be noticed, that he actually creates new content instead of milking old, forgotten photos for a second round, and that he is genuine and Steve eating a new batch of freshly-cooked muffins (Bucky’s, obviously) is the real deal.

Then his follower number hits half a million after a particularly angled picture of a very naked Steve, Steve is grinning like the evil little shit he's always been, and Tony is considering proposing to Pepper only to be the most popular in the room again. (If Bucky wasn't so used to a certain someone always trying to prove his worth he'd be more impressed.) Bucky himself gets a whiplash from the amount of notifications, reactions and from imagining that each digit beside the “liked” line means an actual person who saw what he posted and that's how he finds himself at 3am in the kitchen eating chocolate chip ice cream from the bowl.

Surprisingly, Pepper finds him sooner than Steve, herself after some relief in the form of a fresh glass of smoothie.

“Tony got me hooked, but there's none at the workshop,” she explains after taking a sip, then takes off heels that should be classified as deadly weapons. “I just flew in from a meeting - God I hate old white businessmen.”

Bucky grunts in agreement. Pepper takes a long look into her glass before she nods to herself, then sits down next to Bucky. “Wanna talk about it?” 

“Hm?”

“You look like you could use an ear,” she says.

“It's the middle of the night and you just arrived,” Bucky says, bewildered. 

“If I wanted a normal lifestyle I wouldn't have started working for Tony, let alone accept being the CEO of SI - if you don't want to talk, I get it, but I'm not offering just to be polite.”

_ I'm afraid of what people will think of Steve when they find out about me and him _, is his problem, but he's not ready to say the words aloud. “How did - what did people say when Tony made you CEO?”

“Oh, loads of nasty things,” she waves. “It usually boiled down to me either having slept my way to the top or Tony having lost his mind. Sometimes both. They also criticized my lack of qualifications, which... a quick Google search would tell you that being the top of the year with a scholarship of a business management program of the best West Coast institute isn't exactly lacking, but the headlines sold better that way, I guess.”

She, miraculously, doesn't sound bitter. 

“How did you…” 

He doesn't know how to finish.

“Deal? Feel?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, it was hard. Obviously. Tony was also dying, then there was the Avengers business - it was definitely hard, but worth it. I know-” she stops, then starts again. “Whatever you're going through, I can only advise some generalities, clichés, even, but - they were true for me.”

Nice, that she knows what he needs even without him asking. “Yes? Please.”

“There's always going to be people that hate you and what you do, no matter how much you try to change for their sake. The best way, I found, is to live happily and successfully despite all of them, to prove them wrong subtly yet unavoidably.”

It does sound rather cliché, but then Bucky remembers that his whole life is also full of such things. He once told Steve they were going to the future, and then they did despite Bucky going the pretty way. It was the love of his life who brought him back from decades of brainwashing and memory-erasing. Steve himself is the embodiment of the underdog coming on top. 

Bucky also likes the juxtaposition between the non-aggressive delicacy of the plan and Steve's intruding loudness. 

He limits himself to a minimum of one and a maximum of two photos uploaded per week. Sometimes that means taking dozens of pictures daily and scheduling, but sometimes it’s just a quick, blurry image on the go. 

He also makes sure he doesn't reveal neither his identity nor his gender. It's a deliberate effort to show things Bucky actually enjoys doing for real instead of constructing a fake persona full of pinks and glitters - it would be so easy to slip into a different personality, one that fits the public image, but Bucky doesn't want to actually lie. So he does what he likes, and yes, a lot of those are "girly": cooking, playing with Shubbles, knitting, showing off his garden and his Steve, soft and smiling and sleeping and painting. But there's also his bike, a generous gift personalized by Tony, and his excellent sniping skills as shown by the marks in the range, and his newfound taste for dark beer. What’s neither here nor there, he thinks, is his rather aggressive distaste for baseball - mostly just to fuck with Steve, but also because of the Dodger's betrayal. 

His followers seem to take the shooting pics as proof that it's Nat who's dating Steve, and the recipes and useful cat-hacks as disproof. 

People are weird. 

He's not the only Avenger who has an account, especially not a secret one. Some of the team members have official Twitter and Instagram accounts that are moderated by PR people and contain meet & greet infos, and the very few social cause signal boosts that SHIELD okayed. Steve doesn’t have a public account other than that, but he does have a private one: **@longwayfrombrooklyn**, where he posts sarcastic doodles and panoramic oils on canvas for his few hundred followers. And of course it's Steve Bucky always focuses on, but he also knows that Nat loves collecting ideas from Pinterest about evening dresses and harmonizing colors, Bruce is subscribed to various and mostly fancy tea houses all around the globe, and Clint stalks everything from shady food joints through pet shelters to realtor marketing, which - _ fine_, Bucky also has his fair share of uncharacteristic vegetarian cooking tip subscriptions, he won't judge. All in all, Tony is the most unreserved, mostly because he'd been famous even before he became an Avenger or a superhero, and apparently showing off too much nothing in order to mask a little important is actually a great strategy.

[image of some grey knitwork. Liked by longwayfrombrooklyn and 33,589 others. onyourright: nothing more calming than some handwork...]

[image of Steve wearing a grey knitted scarf. Liked by tonystarkofficial and 52,618 others. onyourright: he wears it well]

The official accounts all follow his own, which is a nice way of showing the Avengers support him and Steve. Other than that his account isn't officially acknowledged, and after a few weeks Steve's mystery relationship mostly becomes old news. Some foreign country accepts a policy that the US has a lot to say about, then there's a devastating earthquake, then another celebrity drops a new album and suddenly Bucky's blog - and by proxy Steve - don't make the front page anymore. 

It's just as well: Bucky enjoys taking the pictures and brainstorming with Steve about what to post in order to fuck with everybody's minds - is it a shot of a Disney flick on movie night or is it the new boxing bag in the apartment after Steve shatters it to pieces? - but making sure he himself remains unidentifiable is a pain in the ass. He can't be in the pictures, obviously, not even a little finger, especially not his left one. He also has to be careful with reflecting surfaces, because stalking his own followers has told him that some people with all the time on their hands will magnify everything and then overanalyze the pixelated images and try to read the titles of books on his shelf, for example. Or, in one incredibly extreme situation after which Pepper had to notify the authorities, someone tried to steal the security camera's recordings of a gas station Steve and Bucky stopped at during a drive out of town, based on the the recipe from their coffees and sandwiches (with the date and location) that was visible in one of Bucky's photos. 

It tends to make one paranoid, Bucky sadly realizes, and that's not something he wanted to experience again, now that he's finally a more or less functional member of society. But it’s not enough to discourage him by far. 

Clint suggests an antidote: ridiculous conspiracy theories, in large doses. So they all settle one afternoon and Jarvis brings up their search results on the TV screen while they munch on popcorn and beer. 

There's the usual ones: that it's Nat behind the account, although some mention Pepper - Tony goes very quiet and starts typing away madly - and Jane and even Darcy, and as they go deeper and deeper it turns out Darcy's the most beloved candidate for the position. Why, though, Bucky can't quite understand - she is very nice, yes, but she and Steve met maybe thrice, with Steve being overwhelmed by her absolute lack of restraints anyway. But there's even art about them, and someone used Darcy's semi-famous instagram to prove with the picture quality and light and angles that it is indeed her. 

“There's no way she'd be able to keep it quiet, people, grow some brains,” Tony points out, and Thor “Aye”-s in agreement.

Then there's the wilder ones: that it's all photoshop, it's just a PR move, the Avengers aren't real anyway. Remarkable, what one can find on the second page of Google. Nat has a field day stealing cheese crackers off of Rhodey’s plate and then proclaiming she isn't real anyway so it doesn't count. Steve rolls his eyes and pretends he's the mature one around here, not that he's fooling anybody at this point. Bucky's sure he'll use the nonexistence as an excuse next time the PR team wants him to go along with something that's against his morals. 

The 'it's just for PR' has a strong following too. Experts are quoted about staged photos and essays written on how Steve is normalized this way, something apparently much needed. They claim that having this pseudo-girlfriend shows Steve's human side while his fame can function as a cover for her non-existence - 'we're just protecting her from the media!' - it's this side that also says Steve will "break up" with her off-screen too and can go on with his life like nothing's happened.

“Wow, that's really antagonistic,” Bruce says. 

“Yeah, it seems to be mostly the Cap-haters,” Tony says. 

“Why would people hate Cap?” Bucky wonders.

“Hah, as if _ you _don't hate Cap,” Steve snorts, and everybody looks between him and Bucky. 

Bucky wears his indignation like an armor. 

“I hate Cap because of how much he took from Steve,” he says. “These folks don't know the _ real _ Steve, and I don't get why else would you hate Cap.”

“He can be a symbol of something you don't agree with,” Steve shrugs. “Like America. A certain set of values; old-school ideas.”

“You're none of those things.”

“Some people have a hard time differentiating.”

Back to Bucky's earlier point: people are weird. 

“There's also what I call the ‘it's too good to be real so it has to be fake’ effect,” Clint offers, then, to the questioning glances, explains. “It's like, with young stars? First they're America's sweetheart then they are a bunch of phobic shit and have always been secretly horrible.”

“You watch too many reality TV,” Nat says after a beat.

“No, I think he's onto something,” Bruce argues. “If a sports team keeps winning for too long, people start rooting against them just to see them fail, and also dig up or invent reasons to hate them. It's the same thing.”

“People like to see other people fail,” Tony shrugs. “They can't bear the idea of others being better. That's why I have so many haters, too - I _ am _ better.”

Bucky groans with the rest of the team, and Tony smiles smugly as his quip got the desired effect.

They stumble into a sub-category where people write fiction about Steve and fictional females. There seems to be only a few devoted authors, and to be fair, it’s not just Steve: there are made-up girls for every Avenger. Full-length novels at that, too. 

“Wow. That… is new.”

“It’s really not,” Bruce says, and he isn’t looking at the screen anymore. “Ancient Greek tradition.”

“That doesn’t make me feel better,” Steve says, squirming.

“Then don’t read them. You don’t want to know what’s inside a random stranger’s head about your intimate bits, anyway,” Bruce advises. 

A few clicks later Bucky asks, “What’s Y/N?”

“Yes/No,” Rhodey says.

“No, it’s ‘your name’,” Nat corrects him. “These are reader insert fics.”

She has to explain what that means, and at least now Bucky isn’t the only one gaping at her.

“How do you know these things?” Steve asks, but she just smirks mysteriously.

“We have something similar in Asgard,” Thor says, and everybody turns to him. “Storytelling is an esteemed tradition, and it is considered to be therapeutic, either to the creator or the listener - or both. If you insert yourself into a narrative, it lets you live through experiences you wouldn’t otherwise have.”

They ponder at that. 

“That seems valid,” Sam says. “I still wouldn’t _ read _ it, but maybe it’s not even meant for me.”

“Let’s just move on,” Rhodey agrees. 

“No, wait, this is fun-” Clint tries, but too late: Tony hijacks the controls and they move on.

Beyond the "it's all fake" theories is a new level, one that both Bucky and Steve gasp at.

“No way!”

“How do they know?!”

It's people suggesting Bucky and Steve are together.

“They don't know,” Nat reassures. “They're just guessing.”

“But how-”

“There had been some that said you two were a _ thing _ during the war even when you've been assumed dead,” Tony says. Jarvis pulls up the helpful imagery, some articles written here and there about "closeted romance" and the like. 

“People can't hear ‘inseparable’ without the romantic overtones,” Nat supplies. Bucky has a feeling she's enjoying the situation far too much. 

“But we weren't- not like that, not back then-”

The articles, both contemporary and from before they've been reunited, take whatever little they can get and blow them up and stretch them out. Every glance between them is full of love and longing, every outing is secretly a date, every similar piece of clothing is actually shared. They take reports from eye-witnesses as seriously as one would on the stand, like the members of the 107th mentioning they shared a tent and how Bucky was glued to Steve's side and how Steve lasted only a few weeks without Bucky. They take Steve's current intense protect mode over Bucky as a sign of fatal devotion. There's no public photograph of them together left un-scrutinized and found lacking to signal the romance of the ages.

It's all completely bonkers but also very, very true. Well. Not everything. For instance, they don't wear each others' clothes out to the public. It's just that they have a similar style and a similar sense of fashion, and Steve usually ends up unintentionally copying Bucky - no wonder, given that Steve's fashion sense has always been more of a fashion non-sense. 

And all those things pre-war and during the war, it's... Bucky loved Steve, yes, and Steve loved Bucky, but… they both had other things on their minds and in their hearts and it took them almost a century to allow themselves the luxury of this kind of love. 

For example, Bucky clearly remembers what he was thinking at the time of a certain photograph of himself at the beach being taken, which is a miracle by itself given his patchwork of a memory, but the photos jar something within him and he knows that where people of Tumblr see undying love, he was actually smiling because he was recalling that his youngest sister had just taken her first steps that morning. 

But. They had loved each other back then, just differently, and they shared another kind of love when Bucky returned from HYDRA, and now they have this. Just because people misinterpret other interactions between them doesn't make it any less valid.

“Still weird that they try to reason which one of us tops more often based on how we like to sit,” Bucky says finally. 

“Welcome to my world,” Nat says, and yeah, that puts things into perspective.

All in all, Bucky sees what Pepper meant: no matter what you do, people will draw their own conclusions regardless of truth or intentions. He not only sleeps better afterwards but posts his next pic with much less worrying, too. 

None of it makes Steve any less fighty online, but it does help Bucky. The number of likes on his photos are still unnerving, but less so, now that he knows what some of them think - or rather, now that he knows that... that he has the same kinds of followers everybody else does. He looks up his favorite authors and singers and yes, they have the same types of fans as well. Sure, when people will find out it's _ him _ behind **@onyourright **they'll most likely be out for blood, what with corrupting a national icon and also being a treacherous assassin, but hopefully that'll pass. People wanting to maim him when his return got out into the open has also passed, after all, and nowadays mostly everybody is fine with him working with the Avengers. The loud and important voices are, and it's Steve whose matters most to him, anyway. 

Something draws him to those that believe Bucky Barnes and Steve Rogers are together. Morbid curiosity, he calls it, and begins to agree with Steve: stalking people who stalk him is a lot of fun. First he's uncomfortable at the intense scrutiny - these people don't even know him and Steve are together for real! How worse will it get when they come out? And there's theories and art and even stories written about the two of them, although to be fair there's some about all of the Avengers, with Steve and Bucky being one of the most popular pairings. And Bucky never wanted to see how people imagine his genitalia, _ thank you very much_.

But after the initial shock calms down into mild bewilderment he discovers that the people behind the stories and the art - most of them, anyway - care about their happiness a lot. They believe Steve is the one who'd make Bucky the happiest, and they are absolutely right about that part, but what's strange is they believe it goes both ways. 

Looking at Steve's smile whenever he so much at looks at Bucky, they might be onto something there too.

It's heartwarming to know that Bucky himself and the Avengers aren't the only ones to care about Steve's emotional wellbeing. Somewhat invasive, yes, but also heartwarming. And they accept the idea of Bucky and Steve together despite the baggage labelled Winter Soldier, so a sense of tentative hopefulness buds in Bucky's soul slowly but steadily the more he reads. Even if the details are wrong a lot of the time, the thought behind them is not something he wants to condemn. Not anymore. 

He shows Steve some of them, and not only the most hilarious ones. 

[silver-pants: find yourself someone whose words would bring you back from decades of brainwashing #stevebucky #avengers rpf]

He grins at Steve from behind the screen. Steve frowns.

“That's not something to joke about.”

“Oh yeah it is. We survived, didn't we? Also it's much better than the one that thinks we secretly went to Paris a coupl'a weeks ago to get married on top of the Eiffel Tower.”

Steve's eyebrows skyrocket.

“They what? First off, why would we get married abroad? It's legal here now too.”

“Yeah, but it’s _ Paris_. It's supposed to be romantic.”

“Not when it’s been shot to pieces, and besides, anything is romantic when you're with who you love.”

Bucky rolls his eyes, then he feels his lips curl as an idea hits him, and then he spends the afternoon arranging the most mundane dinner setup ever: takeout on the couch with football on the screen, and then he shoots a picture of Steve trying to maneuver the salad with intense concentration on his face. 

[image of Steve serving himself some salad. Liked by realcaprogers and 69,729 others. onyourright: anything's romantic when you're with who you love, huh? :'D]

Yeah, it's an inside joke but whatever. 

Later Steve hijacks his own official account just to comment with a strong _YES_, just to prove what a dork he is, but he also manages to break Instagram for a couple of hours by thus "officiating" their relationship, so it's all good. 

New theories surface like snails after a rainy day when Bucky discovers Snapchat. He decides some pictures just need more text to get the desired effect, but constantly checking his own pics for ‘clues’ is enough, he doesn’t need the extra amount of editing as well. So his online personality soon gets divided into the aesthetically pleasing and somewhat calculated Instagram and the more instantaneous and, according to Sam, kinda trashy Snapchat.

One night the Avengers hassle too much for the right spot on the couch and Clint ends up spilling his best 8$ wine on Bucky's shirt, which Bucky later photographs and posts.

[image of a shirt with some stains on, and the quote "like a winestrained shirt i can't wear anymore]

This prompts everyone to discard Nat from the Cap-gf candidates as A, she would never get wine on her clothes (true), and B, she would never listen to Taylor Swift (the biggest lie of the universe; Bucky has awesome singalongs with her on long missions or boring Wednesday evenings). 

The group who believes the **@onyourright** accounts are his point out that the fashioning of the shirt is hidden, just the spot that's visible, so no way to tell if it is male of female cut. Bucky secretly applauds the little Sherlock-wannabes.

He decides to stay with Swift: on his Snapchat appears a picture of some random New York scenery with "_welcome to NY_", Steve's eyes with "_never seen that color blue_", and a sleeping Steve with "_this love is a life back from the dead_", which, according to Steve, isn't funny at all. Bucky disagrees. This latest one is also the one that convinces all the secret _#BuckySteve_ believers that it is indeed Bucky who fucks with them on purpose, because how else to take that line if not literally?

His obsession fades after a while, just like with everything else. His first few coffees were fun to share with stuff like "sweet just like love" or other shit, mostly to hear the team groan, but the appeal is diminishing with each new post. 

Steve senses it with his freaky sixth Bucky-sense which he perfected after he got Bucky back. He watches as Bucky tries to select a new picture to post from the hundreds, if not thousands on his phone, then says, “You know, we don't have to drag this out more if you don't wanna.”

Bucky considers that. 

He wants to come out. He really does. Knowing some people already support his relationship encourages him, but on the other hand... he tries not to care about what others think, he really does, but it's hard when they're as famous as they are. And he fears the standard amount of haters will explode the moment they come out, first because the national icon for heterosexuality shouldn't be anything but, and second because Bucky was a wanted mass murderer a couple of years ago, and his name comes up time and time again when some gruesome and unexplained assassination happens. 

“I'm...not sure I’m ready for the backlash yet.”

Steve’s face falls before Bucky could add anything else. “If they come after you, they’ll have to go through me,” he says sternly. 

Bucky sighs, but smiles at him fondly. 

“That’s part of the problem and it won’t help,” he says. “Just… give me more time? And then we can post a short video of us kissing or something, do this properly. I do want to show you off.”

Steve leans down to kiss him where he's sitting. “We have all the time in the world,” he promises, and Bucky believes him.

He _ will _ be ready. 

Bucky’s doing his best to mentally prepare, and almost signs up to Twitter to say “haters gonna hate”, but he doesn’t. It's been almost half a year since his photos went viral, and the uncertainty of the world’s reaction is weighing on him just as much as his troubled past does. 

It seemed a very good idea all those months ago - scratch that. It was stupid even then, but at least the consequences were far away. And they had fun in the meantime - trolling the whole world with your lover is incredibly entertaining, and playing on gender-based stereotypes is even more so. 

For some reason Bucky breaks his usual pattern of Instagram-Snapchat-Tumblr to visit some other platforms, and somehow ends up on the very intolerant side of the Net. _ Rocketman _comes out, the story of a gay rock-star whose career Steve slept through and Bucky was mind-controlled through, and there’s a lot of protests based on family values because of some nude scenes. It wouldn’t happen with straight couples. 

Bucky ends up nosediving into hate comments, and half an hour later he’s sick and shaking. He grabs Shubbles, and the purr-therapy eases the discomfort, but he wants to bleach his mind. Erasing his own memories has never been more appealing, and that’s saying a lot, coming from him. 

Casual homophobia, he gets - and disapproves of, but he at least _ gets _ it. His generation was bathing in it, and he knows that often, it’s not malicious, just misguided and misinformed. But it can escalate into something much worse, as illustrated by the lengthy blogposts explaining why being gay is sick and should be banned. _ That _ he’ll never understand. And those don’t even take the cake; no, that goes to the Senators and Representatives whose speeches feature on the blog, who campaign for this shit and defend bakers who refuse to make wedding cakes. 

Bucky doesn’t believe in hell, not the traditional kind anyway. He’s lived in his own hell for seventy years, and he doesn’t think he will go there after he dies; and even if he does, it won’t be because of his love for Steve. But that won’t stop people from saying that he will, and that he is condemning Steve to an eternity of suffering as well. 

And there are people actively trying to sabotage the work of openly gay people. A lot of them, in fact. Online petitions, mass letters written to producers to say not to employ gay actors, protesting camps outside stadiums. 

“What’s wrong? Bucky?”

It takes Bucky a long moment to realize that Steve is kneeling beside him, full of concern.

“What if they will want to cancel us?” He asks. “What if they will get us kicked from the Avengers?” 

He hasn’t realized how much that frightens him until now. And not only because of Steve, but because of himself - _ he _doesn’t want to leave the team.

Steve’s brows furrow, and he takes Bucky’s hand that’s not petting Shubbles. “Fury won’t let that happen. _ I _ won’t let that happen.”

“You may not be able to stop it,” Bucky says. He nods at the monitor, and Steve scans through the pages fast. “There’s a lot of them.”

“Fuck them,” Steve says vehemently. “Bucky, I’m so sorry I dragged you into this. We don’t have to come out, you can delete your blogs, everything can stay the same…”

“I let myself be dragged,” Bucky sighs, and he scoots over so that Steve can climb onto the couch next to him, and they can snuggle. “In fact, I don’t remember a lot of persuasion being needed. And I don’t want to just leave it at that; I don’t want us to live in a lie.” 

Steve kisses his temple. “If they force us, we can just go elsewhere. Live in a cabin, have a small farm or something. I’ll gladly give up the Avengers to have you.”

Warmth spreads in Bucky’s chest. He squeezes Steve’s hand.

“I don’t want to leave,” says. “Or for you to leave.” 

They just hold each other in silence. Well, in Shubbles’s purring. 

“I wanted to brace myself for how bad it could get,” Bucky sighs. “I shouldn’t have read those sites.”

“No, but maybe it’s a good thing you did,” Steve says, and Bucky raises an eyebrow. “I’ve been thinking - maybe we should ask someone who actually knows about these sorts of things.”

“What, like a coming out expert?” Bucky snorts.

“Exactly.”

Which is how they find themselves together with the whole team on the next Saturday afternoon: everybody wanted to come and help. 

Bucky appreciates them, even though by now he sees the world in a much better light. _ Rocketman _ is critically acclaimed, the fan-sites Bucky follows hail it as the next best thing, which does help a lot. Plus maybe Bucky shouldn’t be surprised if he gets a panic attack in the middle of the night after reading the worst things humanity can offer.

Not everybody is out to get them, there is no way they can make Steve retire against his will, and fuck the homophobes anyway.

Regardless, asking for help couldn’t hurt. 

“You didn’t think about this part _ at all? _” is Sam’s first question when they explain their problem. 

“The original plan was to make a bang outta it,” Steve says. “When those first few photos were leaked everybody unquestioningly imagined they're from a woman. We just wanted to show them how misleading assumptions can be.”

Sam, with visible effort, doesn't roll his eyes or sigh out loud. He gives a resigned look to Bucky, though. “Was he always like this?”

“Like what?'

“An overdramatic little shit.”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

“Hey-”

“How did he survive the Depression?” Tony asks.

“Not for the lack of trying not to, but his Ma and I did our best to keep him breathing.”

“Hey!” Steve protests. “It wasn't so bad - and it's not like that now. We just- fine, I just-”

“You got yourselves into a corner, is what you did,” Pepper says. 

“Yeah,” Steve ducks his head a bit. “Maybe.”

“JARVIS, show them what we’ve been working on.”

A bunch of folders appear on the TV screen with undecipherable names like “0.489% probability”. On Bucky’s command, the folder opens to show a bunch of calculations, charts and numbers that makes Bucky's head ache. 

“These are outcome scenarios,” Pepper says. “But I can simplify it for you by giving you an advice - an advice I already shared with Bucky.”

Steve looks somewhat surprised - Bucky apparently forgot to disclose her insight. 

“When you come out there's gonna be a backlash, mostly from the traditionals. We can handle that by showing the team supports you and not caring. There's going to be people who don't believe it, them you'll just have to ignore. Some will have a problem with it being Bucky and not it being a male, your partner, that is.” She looks at Steve, and Steve is about to blow himself up like a balloon when Bucky lays his hand on his arm, and Steve deflates. “You're allowed to shout at anybody you want but I'll advise against it. The best thing you can do is just to_ show them _ that you're good together, which anybody who've met you can also tell, and that's it. With time the criticism will settle, you'll just have to ride it out.”

“Does it matter how we come out?” Steve asks. “'I don't want anybody to blame Bucky - this was my idea and I don't want it to backfire on him.”

“Right, because I need a gun pointed at my head to want in on your crazy ideas,” Bucky rolls his eyes. “Stevie, I know your antics. If I don't wanna do something I won't. Stop blaming yourself for shit that ain't your fault.”

Silence settles. Tony, to the surprise of no one, is the one who breaks it. 

“Oh my God, he swore in front of America's Noblest! Alert!”

Steve rolls his eyes. “Tony, don't.” 

But Bucky can see that it has the desired effect and Steve loosens somewhat. 

“Sorry, I didn't mean to take your choice away from you,” Steve looked at Bucky sheepishly.

“You didn't,” Bucky said simply. “So, Pepper, how should we come out?”

Steve takes control of his official Instagram and begins interacting with Bucky's. Not overwhelmingly, just once or twice a week - he'd repost Bucky's shot of their diner table, or comment under Bucky's post with a few words and maybe an emoji or two. The internet, predictably, goes nuts the first few times and over-analyzes everything. 

Then it becomes the norm. 

Steve is a tactician through and through: he thanks whatever kinds of muffins **@onyourright** makes for him, is enthusiastic but not obnoxious, and he opens up about his own opinions too. Under Bucky's photo of a few beers in the fridge he comments and picks the darkest one; he takes a picture of his newest Vinyls, says the scratchy sound makes them even better; always reblogs Bucky’s homemade dinners with heart emojis. 

He even takes a picture himself of Shubbles snuggled up asleep in his lap, and predictably, everybody loses their mind.

Still not willing to answer questions about his "partner" - and let's not even get into what the shippers say about using the gender neutral term consistently -, but Steve begins to bring his relationship up a couple of times in interviews. Nothing big, and always with journalists who won't pressure him for more, but he does smile and say 'yeah, my partner introduced me to that show' (about _ Brooklyn 99 _) or 'actually, my partner made me realize how good-looking it can be' (about his beard), and 'yes, I'll show it to my partner too!' - it’s Bucky’s all-time favorite, he just loves to hear the sound of that.

It establishes things further. The nay-sayers still deny his partner's existence, but the rest seems to be on board, and Bucky calms down even more about the possible backlash of their coming out. (A new Taylor Swift single may also help with being able to shrug at the haters.) Plus, he loves reading about people being jealous as hell of him. 

Then they sign up to Twitter. 

[realcaprogers: @onyourright movie night: The Emperor's New Groove or Wall-E?]

[onyourright: @realcaprogers Both is good]

The Team follows, then swiftly unfollows them, once it becomes clear they basically do there what they always do anyway, which is to bicker with each other and then vocally criticize some political justice cause. 

[onyourright: "america is for americans" thoughts @realcaprogers?]

[realcaprogers: better pack my bags and head back to Ireland then @onyourright #americaisforthepeople]

That doesn't actually mean they aren't constantly reposting and quipping in the comments, though. Bucky tags Steve and asks what to cook for dinner, Russian or Italian, and Steve doesn't see it for a while (for once he isn't trying to destroy gym bags or traditional family values, but is so immersed in painting that he forgets to check his muted phone.) By the time he does, the Avengers went from jokes to world hunger to Clint encouraging and Pepper trying to prevent Tony from building a capsule-food machine. 

Bucky spends the time making Italian and mocking the cookbook, then posting a picture of his lasagna and telling Steve that dinner is ready – and he also shouts that, and lo and behold, a Steve immerges with paint splattered everywhere. 

"Mm," he says, and kisses Bucky, so now Bucky has blue ears and green streaks in his hair too.

And his first thought (his second, after whipping Steve's ass with a cloth in retaliation, which Steve laughs off, the bastard) is that he wants to snap a picture and post that too. 

But he can't. That would be revealing.

And would that be such a bad thing?

By the time Steve is back from washing up, the dilemma has Bucky in a visible despair. 

"What's wrong?" Steve asks immediately.

"Why don't we just come out now?" Bucky asks back. 

"Well, Pepper said – and we agreed–"

"Yeah, but I want to show you off to the world," Bucky whines. "Show _ us _ off."

Steve was right all along: Bucky got ready, all on his own but with the help of his newfound family, and now he wants to move forward even more.

Steve’s eyes shine suspiciously, just like always when Bucky talks about their relationship, the big softie. And true to form, Bucky gets an overwhelmed supersoldier in his arms. 

"So do I," Steve muffles into his shoulder. "So do I, Buck, and if you want..."

"No," Bucky sighs. He needs to be the good influence, after all. Western civilization would crumble if he started acting just as overdramatic as Steve. "I do want, but we should be smart about it for once in our lives. Would be a first for you, eh?"

That has the desired effect of eliciting a wet laugh from Steve, so it's all good. 

Other than talking to Steve online, which is very fun and does wonders to Steve's public image, Bucky's favorite Twitter activity is answering fans’ questions. 

[sarah998: @onyourright how did you and @realcaprogers meet?]

[onyourright: @sarah998 we hit up a conversation after he was fighting someone 2x his size by the docks]

[danthenurse: hey i wonder if @realcaprogers ever has trouble getting blood out of his uniform. or any of the #avengers #nurseproblems]

[onyourright: @danthenurse #nurseproblems he would if he wasn't friends with @tonystarkofficial]

That kicks off a storm a few weeks later, when Tony launches an easy-to-clean fabric ideal both to cover durable suits (like firemen's and armed forces') and to make individual clothing items out of, like medical scrubs. **@danthenurse** is the first to post a video about it, and he can't thank Bucky and Tony enough for the promo batch. Tony brushes it off with 'he was just protecting the environment, less washing time needed, more water saved', but Bucky isn't sure how to react. He wasn't– he didn't think– 

"Just be honest," Steve mutters into his neck. He _ was _ peeking over Bucky's shoulder instead of reading his book, the bastard, but the advice is at least sound.

[onyourright: @danthenurse I had no idea Tony was doing this but I'm so happy it will make many lives easier.]

[protecteuropa: @onyourright is your nick hinting @ ur political views?]

[onyourright: @protecteuropa it's an inside joke between me&Steve. &the last time Europe needed protecting it was from the Nazis]

That one is also a fan-favorite on Tumblr, not only Twitter, with a lot of people pointing out that Steve would never in his right mind date anyone with alt-right views. 

"Damn right I wouldn't," he mutters, then fishes his phone out of his pocket.

[realcaprogers: People say I'm old fashioned and if that means willing to fight the Nazis, then I'm old fashioned ineed]

It is one of his highest liked and reblogged post ever. It does earn him a mild scolding from the PR people, which Steve steadily ignores, and retweets the post with "_done it twice, would do it again_". 

Bucky would call Steve overdramatic, but he knows better - and he would also follow Steve into whatever war they’re going, so he just retweets the posts without commentary. 

There are some - okay, a _ lot _ \- of tweets and messages they both ignore. Ones speculating about Bucky's identity and gender, if he's real, about their sex life (which still creeps Bucky out), if Steve is going to propose and if they want to have kids - these are rabbit holes neither of them are willing to go down. 

But the steady Twitter presence pays off slowly. Based on the fan-forums and news articles Bucky still stalks, many began to think of the two of them as an inseparable item, even if Bucky's profile pic is an oil on canvas (from Steve) of Shubbles, and they have no visual rep together. However, they do interact frequently and that is honest and convincing enough that even some of the “it's only a PR scheme" people are now on their side. 

(There are, and there probably always will be naysayers. Some people have an unwavering belief that will not budge, no matter the “proof” or “evidence” shown. Some get firmer in their conviction that it’s Darcy who’s behind the blog; others have the same level of commitment in the hoax-theory. When they come out, those small groups of believer may be at the frontline of the backlash against them, but that’s fine. Bucky’s lived through enough to know that not every battle can be won, but the war will be theirs. And Steve’s love is his; nothing else matters much.) 

**@onyourright** earns huge brownie points for not only showing the mundane, everyday part of their lives, like Steve singing _ ME! _ off-key or their adventures in curtain shopping (seriously, why are there so many patterns and textures? surely nobody needs that. they wouldn't either, had Shubbles, the traitor, not used their previous one as a scratchpost), but also for getting attention to where it is needed. 

See, Bucky's browsing hours get him deep into the dark side of the web: sometimes to disturbing conspiracy theories, but sometimes to this awkward garage band who sing a lot about mental health issues. On their profile they say that two out of five had a tour each in Iraq, and the rest have PTSD and mental illness because of various traumas, including childhood and domestic abuse, and discrimination based on sexual orientation. Their music is quite catchy, but it's the lyrics that hit very close to home, too. 

Bucky shows them to Steve and Sam, and there is something incredibly unifying about trauma - no matter which type you experience, it changes you, and it doesn't matter if you sleep too little or too much, or what exactly triggers you. When the lyrics come from someone who has palpably gone through it, it touches you. 

Sam's eyes are shining suspiciously by the end and Steve has gone eerily quiet, and Bucky just pours them some water and sits with them, because yeah, he felt that too. 

A few days later Steve tells Bucky that he wants to raise awareness, do something, and so he reaches out to the band. They don't believe him at first, but when Steve goes down to Pittsburgh to meet them, things obviously change. They shoot a music video for one of their songs, and the quality isn't the best, and the production is kinda rushed, but the message is the same: Steve, and by proxy, Cap, supports the band and their message of talking about difficult subjects. 

They, too, thank **@onyourright** online, and by that point the members know it's Bucky. Bucky went with Steve, and after a few hours of talking with the band, came out as the person behind the account. Jayson, the gay kid of the group, almost jumped into his arms as a result. 

Steve attends charity events and then tells the world he found out about them via his partner. He keeps not only going to therapy and vet meetings, but tweeting and talking about them a lot, and that even surprises Bucky - he himself doesn't talk about his trauma online, obviously, but he doesn't close up with the Avengers anymore unlike Steve. But Stevie's been opening up as well, and even without Nat and Sam telling Bucky about how Steve used to be, Bucky would notice it. 

Steve openly tweets that he used to be depressed. That he put the plane down not only because it was the right thing to do, but also because he did not want to live anymore. That he had trouble finding a reason to keep going, even when he woke up in the "future". That he always had issues, and he always will - nowadays it's better, because he asked for help, he's not trying to carry everything on his shoulders alone, but he still destroys punching bags at the gym or loses himself in a painting and doesn't eat for a full day. 

[realcaprogers: Depression isn't being sad. Depression is being so hopeless and tired that you just don't have the energy to carry on]

[realcaprogers: Therapy saves lives. Maybe if we had it back then, I wouldn't have put the plane down into the ocean @NYCvets]

Aside from a ton of support from fellow vets and other trauma survivors, there are a lot of headlines and a surprising amount of backlash, which Bucky tears down tweet by tweet. How dare they say that Steve shouldn't be talking like that, that this isn't the Cap people signed up for - bullshit. Everybody should be fucking ecstatic when a fellow human says they are doing better than before. How is that not common human decency?

So then Steve has to tear apart the ones that go after **@onyourright**, and it's an endless circle of them defending each other, just as always. 

Some ask if he's doing better because of his new relationship, and Steve is compelled to answer honestly: yes and no. No, because his partner did not magically heal him with the power of love (but wouldn't that be nice), but yes, because his partner went through a lot of shit but came back from it all, and was never afraid to accept help, and that inspired Steve to follow the lead. 

There is a growing community online, mostly on Tumblr but they do have a steady Twitter and Instagram presence, that seem to really care about Steve. Bucky recognizes the core members as the part of that small handful of people he first came across, all those months ago, when his prank with Steve began, but their numbers have been expanding steadily. They are loud enough to outshout the naysayers, and every single one of them appear to be just as glad for Steve's new development as Bucky is. They talk about a “glow up”, whatever that means, and keep wishing Steve the best, and love whoever is behind **@onyourright** (a lot, but not all, suspect it's Bucky). 

When Steve speaks out in favor of free healthcare (which isn't _ free_, you pay for it with your taxes, Bucky grumbles quietly), or shuts down pro-life arguments, or says trans rights, he gets an incredible amount of support from his fans, so much so that Bucky only ever checks the community occasionally, certain that things are going in the right direction without him anyway. 

He may be online less often, but who can blame him when he has such a gorgeous boyfriend waiting to share his life with him?

But if one thing never changes, it's that Steve is still the overdramatic idiot he always has been.

"Hey, Buck, mind if I come out first?"

"What?" Bucky jerks up - he's been petting Shubbles, and the purring almost had him dozing off as well. Steve is, of course, scowling at his phone. "Nah, you can come out whenever you want, Stevie."

"Yeah, but it concerns you as well, so I wanted to check in."

Bucky waves - honestly, he's ready to move onto the next phase of their plan too.

"Good," Steve says, and then stands up and vanishes.

"What," Bucky mumbles.

He puts Shubbles down and follows, and finds Steve in the bathroom, applying acrylic paint to his face.

"Is that supposed to be on your skin?" Bucky asks sceptically.

"Probably not, but if the Atlantic ice didn't kill me, this won't either," Steve says flippantly, immersed in painting half of his face in Pride colors. 

"Subtle," Bucky says. "What brought this on now?"

"Pride month is starting and I read the comments."

"Aw, Stevie - we don't read the comments, haven't you learned?"

Steve blissfully doesn’t remind Bucky that he used to do that, too. 

It takes little to no time for Steve to finish covering half of his face with paint. It doesn't dry evenly, is patchy and crumbly, especially with how Steve keeps frowning and furrowing his eyebrows. 

"You want some glitter?" Bucky offers.

"Sure, why not," Steve says, so they cover his hair in the silver holo glitter that they got for a different prank war, and then Steve puts on a T-shirt that says 'love is love', which is a stupid idea because it messes up the paint and sends the glitter flying everywhere. But whatever, it's not like they'd get rid of the stuff anyway, which is the price of looking fabulous in Bucky's opinion.

Then Steve stands on the balcony, facing indoors so that the New York skyline with the setting Sun is visible in the background, and Bucky takes a picture of him, focusing on his face but making sure the light catches on the glitter and that the slogan on his shirt is readable.

Steve posts it to all his accounts.

[realcaprogers: I've always believed in fighting for what's right, and what's right is telling the truth. The truth is, whatever straight is, I'm not it]

It's like a miniature apocalypse follows: the internet, as a whole, breaks, which leads to Tony shouting at them colorfully on the phone. It's just as well, because the apartment needs cleaning after the glitter-hurricane, which Bucky documents for later use.

Hours pass before Twitter and Tumblr come back to life, and while Instagram loads, it doesn't load new stuff, so that isn't a functional route either. But since the day took out a lot of them, they simply mute everything and go to sleep.

The next morning every headline is full of the news, and Bucky scrolls through them half-heartedly. Just as predicted, the loyal fans are loud in their support, and Fox news can fuck itself, so he quickly turns it off again. 

The Avengers throw a party for Steve that evening: there's cake and everything is rainbow-coloured, because Tony can be just as overdramatic as Steve. Their group selfie ends up online, too, to show their unilateral acceptance.

"I don't know which is more insulting, that they thought we didn't know or if they thought we'd care," Nat says flippantly, also browsing the reactions.

The theories about **@onyourright** generally being a man, and more specifically, being Bucky Barnes also hit the mainstream news. Some don't understand how Steve could be not straight and yet still be with a woman, which Bucky finds all kinds of phobic - and since people keep asking him his opinion, he tells as such. 

Okay, he has an unfair advantage: he knows that Steve has been in love with Peggy, and that he would be in love with Bucky if Bucky was a woman. Steve speaks out about Peggy as well, and says that he did love her, and he would have married her. He also tweets

[realcaprogers: not straight =/= gay]

which gets printed on so many T-shirts in the following days that Tony gets jealous over his Iron Man merch sales dropping. 

Some of the LGBT+ community find his behaviour problematic, of course. They say that he should be more precise with what words he uses, more careful about what image he presents, but Bucky personally disagrees. Steve has been forced into a box a long time ago, and that box was showed into a closet, and he came out of the closet alright, so it's time to shed the box too. 

Bucky's way of showing his side of the events is via posting a pic of the cleanup, and asking for tips about glitter removal. 

[onyourright: of course i knew about his plan & support him. who do you think took the photo?]

"I want to go to the parade," Steve says a few weeks later.

Of course he does.

"Of course you do," Bucky sighs.

"You don't have to, or you could just come as a friend," Steve adds. 

"Hah, sure," Bucky snorts. "Fat chance."

"I don't want to force you," Steve begins, and Bucky puts his metal finger over his mouth to shush him.

"You have never forced me, Stevie," he says. "Never. It's always my decision to follow you, no matter how stupid your ideas are. And I haven't regretted a single one of them, not even the one that ended up with me being at HYDRA's hands."

Tears gather in Steve's eyes, and Bucky lets him go, and predictably, Steve throws himself at Bucky.

"But I do regret those," he says in a wet, muffled tone. "I never wanted this for you."

"I am with you, we are alive, and healthy, and can say we're in love without being imprisoned for it," Bucky rubs his back. "I'd say it's a solid deal."

"That shouldn't have come at that cost."

"Agreed, but it did. I am my own person, Rogers, listen to Peggy - leave me the dignity of my choice."

Steve has probably regretted a hundred times telling Bucky that, but it's too late, and Bucky does capitalize on it.

"Okay, if you're sure."

"I'm sure. Let's end this scheme on a bang and show the world," Bucky grins, and kisses him fully.

On the day of the parade, they are dressed in their most outrageously gay outfits - that is, Steve in is latest Cap uniform, including the shield on his back, and a huge rainbow-american flag on a pole, and Bucky in loose jeans and a tank-top that has Steve's shield emblazoned on the front, but the colors are swapped in favor of the rainbow. He also has a rainbow-colored half-heart, half-star on his metal shoulder, painted by Steve, of course, and a super-colorful flower crown over his braided hair (courtesy of Thor). 

Bucky lines his eyes black, just to make them pop, and Steve's breath catches when he sees that.

"You like it, punk?" he asks, but Steve just kisses him in response. 

"You look breathtaking."

"You're not so bad yourself," Bucky says, blushing, because it'll never get old that Steve finds him attractive, despite everything. And he's not even lying: the suit does wonders to Steve's arms, and chest, and waist, and thighs, and ass, and everything, honestly. 

"I still remember how you looked at the first outfit," Steve says, and Bucky blushes harder. "Glitter?"

"Outside," Bucky says, because he is capable of learning from the past. "Only outside. You ready?" 

"Always," Steve entwines his fingers in Bucky's. "'Till the end of the line, remember?"

"I will never forget," Bucky promises, then snaps a photo of their hands: the metal one holding on to Steve's right one, the rainbow flag pooled on the floor, blurry in the background.

[onyourright: Stevie said he'd wait for me to be ready to come out & now i am. i'll always be at his right no matter what. pride parade, here we come!]

**Author's Note:**

> [The images sometimes don't load properly; if you want the full fic with all the embedded images, you can download the PDF here!](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1H7eSnRXvQ_s_ZsBgPXDAOGPiitEGQvd7/view)
> 
> ETA: added pic descriptions in brackets! 
> 
> Whew, let's do some housekeeping!
> 
> Yes, _another_ fic with Taylor Swift-lyrics and Pepper as the media relations expert who saves the day. Who'd have thought, ey? 
> 
> I started writing this about two years ago, to be a mixed media continuation of the _[When I look at him](https://archiveofourown.org/series/941448)_ series. But I wrote myself into a corner and abandoned it for a while. Then I did a [_Happy Steve Bingo_](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16791373)[ fill](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16791373) with the exact same idea, so technically the latter is a remix of this, but oh well - I deliberately want to link the two together in a non-linear way, because that's the closest to reality. 
> 
> This was inspired by the awesome fic [_Nothing's As Sweet As Super Soldiers In Love_](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3618150) by [heartsdesire456](https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartsdesire456/pseuds/heartsdesire456), one of my oldest and all-time favorite fics on the subject! 
> 
> Also inspired by a tumblr post about how _technically_ Steve isn't that overdramatic bc everything he does (ie. ripping the A off of his shoulder in CW) has a very legitimate and real reason, and I kept thinking about that a lot, and basically this meta happened. But since that was years ago and I don't remember where/if I saved the post, and the tagging is fucked up, I can't link it :( 
> 
> A few additional notes: Bucky has a transphobic and maybe even a homophobic line here, which I hope you can forgive him. He corrects himself immediately, and his excuse is that while he's doing his best, he still makes mistakes. He comes from a very different time period and is heavily traumatized, and so I didn't want to write him as someone who's perfectly up to date with political correctness. 
> 
> About shipping RPF: I have to be honest, I'm very uncomfortable with RPF ships/fics/etc, but I didn't want to portray it negatively just because I don't get it. (The reason why I abandoned this fic two years ago is because I was afraid that I'd fell off the tightrope). I tried to imagine how I'd feel if I, dunno, found a magical lamp and became a famous original fiction writer and came accross RPF of myself, and then tweaked that to Bucky. I definitely didn't want to to condemn it as a whole, but I also wanted to portray some of the issues with it. Also note that while I play with the idea of Bucky and Steve and the Avengers being "real" in the universe, they are still just fictional characters in ours, and clearly I have nothing against shipping them :D And Bucky actively seeks out the theories about himself, which makes it very different than when real-life actors are shown explicit NSFW art about themselves on a show, which I think shouldn't happen. 
> 
> This is my first actual mixed media fic, and I'm bad at editing images, so please be kind XD
> 
> I hope you liked it! <3 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Steve Rogers and the minefields of social media](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16791373) by [cpt_winniethepooh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cpt_winniethepooh/pseuds/cpt_winniethepooh)


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